Shadowhunters: Jade Hassouné cast as Meliorn

Meliorn, the faerie knight who serves the Seelie Queen, has been cast. Jade Hassouné has been tapped for the role.

Meliorn’s first appearance is in City of Ashes, but similar to Camille, it has been announced that he too will have an appearance on the first season of Shadowhunters. Given that we don’t actually know how much this season will cover, it might actually make sense.

I have to admit that I’m pretty excited about this casting, though I can’t put my finger on why. But it was the first casting news that made me stop in the rain grinning uncontrollably into my smartphone.

Again, I don’t know why, but I always imagined Meliorn as a person of colour. It’s not how he’s described, at all, but I imagined him (always) with light brown skin, dreadlocks (no idea why) and green eyes… 😀 😀 😀

Meliorn proves super important throughout the series.

Can we take a moment to appreciate this cast diversity?! They took a wildly diverse book series, and made it even more diverse. Think at how the seats for the representatives from all four Downworlder races will be filled =D !!!!

Girl Online (Zoe Sugg)

>  Nº 45 on My 2015 Reading Challenge – A book set during Christmas <

I had no idea GirlOnline would take off the way it has – I can’t believe I now have 5432 followers, thanks so much! – and the thought of opening up to you all about this is terrifying, but here goes…

Penny has a secret.

Under the alias GirlOnline, she blogs about school dramas, boys, her mad, whirlwind family – and the panic attacks she’s suffered from lately. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets the gorgeous, guitar-strumming Noah. Suddenly Penny is falling in love – and capturing every moment of it on her blog.

But Noah has a secret too. One that threatens to ruin Penny’s cover – and her closest friendship – forever.

This book took me FOREVER! Ok, so not forever, but 5 days is way too much for this kind of YA book.

Girl Online did not work for me. It took me so long to get through it because for the first 100 pages or so, I could not read more than 20 pages at one sitting.  After page 100, when they are in New York, the pace becomes a little more bearable, but still, it’s not a great improvement.

The plot uses all the clichés in the world of YA lit: gay best-friend, clumsy girl, girl who can’t connect with the world, miracle trip, instant-love with a random stranger in NYC who turns out to be pretty famous, hot guy back at school who suddenly likes her back… you get the gist… It’s nothing that others YA novels haven’t used a million times. So, what makes this one worse than all the others?! It’s terrible written! SO BAD!

So, here are some stuff that really troubled me while reading this and had me rolling my eyes and huffing loudly on the train:

• She’s insufferable. I know that probably every 15 year-old girl has confidence problems, but do you really have to repeat the same bulls*** 1000 times?

• The blogging. This could have been good, if she actually “lived” online, maybe the storyline would be more interesting. Instead she writes a post once a week, about her everyday life. She doesn’t actually spend that much time online… none at all actually. And the posts?! Mehhh, bleak!

• The blog. Jesus, do you have a miracle formula to post once a week and have thousands of followers within the first year?

• The panic attacks. They could have actually worked this, but instead you have a pretty dumb 15 YO who doesn’t know that panic attacks exist… it serves mostly to advance her intimacy with Noah.

• Her bitchy School-BFF… so stereotypical.

• The New York Trip. Really?! A couple getting married choose someone from the UL to organize their wedding in a few days that is taking place in NYC? I’m sorry, it doesn’t make any sense. I was always under the impression that the planners worked on a contacts basis, and they didn’t know anyone in NY, so how could they organize the whole thing?

• So, it’s totally normal to let your 15 yo daughter roam around NY with an 18 yo guy she just met?! Are you serious? I don’t care who the grandmother (you just also met) is.

• That instant-love with Noah just felt so… weird! Come one… no, no, no, no…

• The second job – which only purpose was to keep them in the city. At the wedding her mom tells her that the girl she’s doing the second party for is willing to pay all their expenses until the New Year… so why the hell do they leave the hotel to stay in the house of someone they just met?

• Another thing, nobody thought about what an 18 and 15 yo were doing completely alone and in the dark? I mean, no matter how much you trust your kids, they don’t know this guy… grrrrr!!!

• Penny doubting Elliott (and being altogether an awful friend). Basically, from the moment Penny met Noah, her head stopped working. Her best friend has to travel alone home and she doesn’t even check her phone? Then shares all this stuff on the web before talking to him? I did not like it. And after that, actually believing that he would blow up the story like that? GGGGGRRRRRRRRR… And then Elliott apologizing?!

• The scandal…. it just had me rolling my eyes the whole time.

• The ending. Ok, so the ending is the only reason why this book even has one star, yes, it could have been worse. It’s sweet – too sweet though. The only character that I felt that redeemed himself was Penny’s brother, who turned out to be a pretty cool brother.

This book did not work for me, but hey, maybe I’m alone on this one. And maybe you all loved it. It has a 3.8 rating on Goodreads, so people have enjoyed it.

Also worth mentioning is the slight scandal that surrounded this book a couple of months back. Apparently this book was written by ghostwriter, Siobhan Curham, and Zoe just had the idea and the obvious name-attached to it since she’s a famous YouTuber (apparently… I had never hear of her).

Rating: 1 Star